I have yet to decide which platform I want to use for security testing. I just rebuilt my Macbook since I no longer need it for work. I have the following apps installed on it and not sure if I should any any others, I figure I could also toss on a VM or 2 for other applications (Backtrack).

KisMACWiresharkNMAP 5.21Nessus

Any other suggestions would be welcomed. So what do the rest of you use?

No preferred platform here, I use whatever fits best and does the job. All platforms (and programs) have their pros and cons, so personally I see no reason why to limit myself only to one.If you are more interested in the programs rather than a platform you might find the Top 100 Network Security Tools-list interesting. There it's also noted for which platform the tools are available and thereupon you could choose a particular platform if that's what you want.

Just realized I never finished filling in the subject I suppose I lean towards either my Windows laptop or my Mac. I have tried linux a few times and just find that my knowledge of the OS sometimes hinders my ability to use it efficiently, but then again I am working on that. It is tough to keep focused sometimes

you got the basic tooling covered (except for netcat! dont forget about netcat!). i could recommend to install 2 different versions of tooling for each job, to filter out false positives/negatives. to give a example:

use NMAP and unicornscan.

this way you get some sort of confirmation of the information found and possibly some differences (which you should double check with another tool) that could make or break your pentest.

CISSP, CEH, ECSA, OSCP, OSWP, eCPPT, eWAPT

earning my stripes appears to be a road i must travel alone...with a little help of EH.net

I prefer my netbook with Ubuntu. It's extremely light and portable. I supplement with a USB dongle wireless card that supports injection better and an external hard drive when I need extra storage not handled by my SSD drive. There are just a few Windows tools that I cannot get working in Wine that force me to bring my notebook once in a while.

I'll also second the netbook. I purchased a EEE-PC 900HA a couple years back, scrapped the XP Installation and installed BackTrack. It runs BackTrack 3 & 4 pretty seemlessly - Love it I believe the 1000 series models run it well too.

I have an HP Mini 1000 myself. I am very happy with it, especially after upgrading the RAM to 2GB. The only thing I should have done differently is purchased one with HP's Linux distro. I would have saved $50. I wouldn't have used their distro and would have still used Ubuntu, but I would have enjoyed another two cases of beer or so.

I have an Acer Aspire One D250 Netbook. I bumped it up to 2Gigs and put the latest BIOS on. (Older BIOS's did not handle booting from SD slot.) Put BT4 on the SD. Have not had anything break with BT and the Acer.

MicroJay wrote:I have an Acer Aspire One D250 Netbook. I bumped it up to 2Gigs and put the latest BIOS on. (Older BIOS's did not handle booting from SD slot.) Put BT4 on the SD. Have not had anything break with BT and the Acer.

I'm also using the same netbook. Unfortunately i'm unable to get the wireless drivers\card to work. How did you manage it.